Cybersecurity through the lens of Digital Identity and Data Protection: Issues and Trends

The use of a secure and robust digital identification system that is capable of protecting privacy is an essential, reliable and user-friendly element for a strong cyber resilience strategy and is a source of new business opportunities and applications for banks, private sector with a return on their investment.The march towards Digital Identity is well underway therefore, focus should be on both adoption and adaption of the new structures and regulations. These are needed to govern the associated services and transactions as well as establishing laws that enforce penalties for violations.There is no doubt then that more and more entities and institutions would move to the cloud. Security challenges affecting the cloud may not be new but the mode of addressing them would be different. The authors develop a Data Colouring technique for securing data processed or stored on both cloud and non-cloud platforms. The technique combines Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), concatenated fingerprints and digital watermarking. Using this technique, data can be secured at creation or during storage and remains secure during processing.     

Crowdwork platform governance toward organizational value creation

Crowdwork, a new form of digitally mediated employment and part of the so-called gig economy, has the capacity to change the nature of work organization and to provide strategic value to workers, job providers, and intermediary platform owners. However, because crowdwork is temporary, large-scale, distributed, and mediated, its governance remains a challenge that often casts a shadow over its strategic value. The objective of this paper is to shed light on the making of value-adding crowdwork arrangements. Specifically, the paper explores crowdwork platform governance mechanisms and the relationships between these mechanisms and organizational value creation. Building on a comprehensive review of the extant literature on governance and crowdwork, we construct an overarching conceptual model that integrates control system and coordination system as two complementary mechanisms that drive crowdwork platform governance effectiveness and the consequent job provider benefits. Furthermore, the model accentuates the role of the degree of centralization and the degree of routinization as critical moderators in crowdwork platform governance. Overall, the paper highlights the potential of crowdwork to contribute not only to inclusion, fair wages and flexible work arrangements for workers but also to organizations’ value and competitive edge.     

Taxonomy of digital community currency platforms*

ABSTRACT

Community currencies are used to pay for products or services within specific groups defined by geographical boundaries or specific common interests. Financial crises, social emergence in developing countries, and increased access to digital devices have stimulated a growing number of communities worldwide to develop digital currency projects. These projects use technologies ranging from traditional plastic cards to mobile phones and blockchain technologies. Following the design science research approach, this paper analyzes digital community currencies (DCCs) by developing a taxonomy based on platform architecture, governance, transactionality and virtuality. By investigating 22 DCC platforms around the world, 4 groups were distinguished: local, proprietary, commons and cyber. The identification of these four different groups of digital community currencies allows us to better discuss the potentials and limitations of each one of them. The presented taxonomy can be useful to researchers and practitioners both to explain and to design DCC platforms. Discussing each of the emerging categories from the proposed taxonomy helps us to provide insights into DCCs, offering a new theoretical frame for investigating the particular case of digital payment platforms.     

Collective institutional work: the case of Airbnb in Amsterdam,London and New York

ABSTRACT

Given that online platforms disrupt established industries and challenge existing institutions, they can only be successful if their innovation becomes both legal and legitimate. This requires ‘institutional work’ that changes perceptions and regulations within society. Rather than only focussing on the online platform as the sole agent engaging in institutional work, our study analyses institutional work as a collective process. We investigate the case of home-sharing platform Airbnb and the process of institutional change its introduction prompted regarding short-term rental in Amsterdam, London and New York. We find, contrary to the popular view of online platforms as disruptive entrepreneurs, that the platform mainly focusses on creating new institutions rather than disrupting existing ones, and that users and non-users undertake most of the institutional work activities. We also show that different types of actors carry out different types of institutional work suggesting that the process of institutional work is highly distributed.     

多特征融合的兴趣点推荐算法

基于位置社交网络的兴趣点推荐越来越受到工业界和学术界的关注。由于用户签到数据集的稀疏性以及签到地理位置的聚集性，使得目前的推荐算法效率普遍不高，特别是当用户外出到新的地点时，推荐效果更是急剧下降。因此本文提出了一种基于用户-区域-内容主题的多特征联合推荐算法（UCRTM），以隐主题模型为基础，在统一的框架下利用隐含因子关联性融合了用户的偏好、兴趣点的内容以及兴趣点所属地理区域主题等信息来进行推荐，使得用户无论身处何地，都能获得理想的推荐服务。本文在两种真实的数据集上进行了实验，结果表明该方法不仅能够克服数据的稀疏性以及弱语义性等问题，而且与其他方法相比具有更高的推荐准确率。     

一种军棋机器博弈的多棋子协同博弈方法

针对在军棋博弈不完全信息对弈中，面对棋子不同价值、不同位置、不同搭配所产生的不同棋力，传统的单子意图搜索算法，不能满足棋子之间的协同性与沟通性，同时也缺乏对敌方的引诱与欺骗等高级对抗能力。本文提出一种结合UCT搜索策略的高价值棋子博弈方法，实现高价值棋子协同博弈的策略。实战经验表明:高价值多棋子军棋协同博弈策略优于单棋子军棋博弈策略。     

MOOC study group: Facilitation strategies,influential factors,and student perceived gains

“Join a Meetup Group” (face-to-face study group) has been propagated by Coursera to build rapport and provide mutual support among MOOC learners; however, studies remain scant regarding its effectiveness and sustainability. This interpretive case study documents our facilitation process, key influential factors, as well as student perceived gains in a six-week MOOC study group. Data sources include discussion recordings, end-of-course interviews, goal setting sheets, weekly reflection journals, and researchers' observation notes. Results showed that, cognitively, participants broadened their perspective of thinking, raised cultural awareness, and shared many learning strategies. Affectively, they established a strong sense of community and gained motivation for learning. Participants also increased action tendencies toward trying out Coursera functions, new courses, and learning strategies, and they became more cognizant of the benefits and procedures of the MOOC study group. Our findings suggest that, with proper design and facilitation, face-to-face study group would be a practicable and effective approach to leverage MOOC students' motivation, engagement, and deeper learning. Implications are discussed in terms of potential gains, challenges, key influential factors, as well as future design and implementation of MOOC study groups.     

基于光纤-无线网络的协同计算卸载算法

随着无源光网络的发展,光纤-无线网络能同时支持集中式云和边缘云计算技术,成为一种具有发展前景的网络结构。但是,现有的基于光纤-无线网络的任务协同计算卸载研究主要以最小化移动设备的能耗为目标,忽略了实时性高的任务的需求。针对实时性高的任务,提出了以最小化任务的总处理时间为目标的集中式云和边缘云协同计算卸载问题,并对其进行形式化描述。同时,通过将该问题归约为装箱问题,从而证明其为NP难解问题。提出一个启发式协同计算卸载算法,该算法通过比较不同卸载策略的任务处理时间,优先选择时间最短的任务卸载策略。同时,提出一个定制的遗传算法,获得一个更优的任务卸载策略。实验结果表明,与现有的算法相比,本文提出的启发式算法得到的任务卸载策略平均减少4.34%的任务总处理时间,而定制的遗传算法的卸载策略平均减少18.41%的任务总处理时间。同时,定制的遗传算法的卸载策略与本文提出的启发式算法相比平均减少14.49%的任务总处理时间。     

Data sharing mechanism of various mineral resources based on blockchain

Basins with various mineral resources coexisting and enriching often occupy an important strategic position. The exploration of various mineral resources is repetitive at present due to unshared data and imperfect management mechanism. This situation greatly increases the cost of energy exploitation in the country. Traditional data-sharing mode has several disadvantages, such as high cost, difficulty in confirming the right of data, and lack of incentive mechanism, which make achieving real data sharing difficult. In this paper, we propose a data-sharing mechanism based on blockchain and provide implementation suggestions and technical key points. Compared with traditional data-sharing methods, the proposed data-sharing mechanism can realize data sharing, ensure data quality, and protect intellectual property. Moreover, key points in the construction are stated in the case study section to verify the feasibility of the data-sharing system based on blockchain proposed in this paper.     

Ageing workforce management in manufacturing systems: state of the art and future research agenda

The workforce ageing phenomenon is recently affecting most of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries, due to a general ageing of their populations and a higher average retirement age of the workforce. In this paper, the topic of ageing workforce management is addressed from a production research standpoint, with the aim of understanding how older workers can be supported and involved in a manufacturing system. First, the current state of the art related to the ageing workforce in production systems is presented. This is structured according to four main topics: (1) analysis and evaluation of ageing workers’ functional capacities, (2) consideration of ageing workers’ capacities in industrial system modelling and management, (3) analysis and exploitation of ageing workers’ expertise, (4) acknowledgement, analysis, design and integration of supporting technologies. Next, the discussion on the impact of the ageing workforce on manufacturing systems’ performances leads to the comparison of some technological advances that are related to the Industry 4.0 paradigms. Finally, a future research agenda on this topic is proposed, based on the same topics classification proposed for the literature analysis. Five different research areas are derived, suggesting future directions for appropriate research concerning the employ of older workers in production environments.